Dave was very late home Tuesday and instantly picked up on my sadness. He came and gave me a big hug. I broke down and cried. His arms were my last place of refuge from the hell I’d made of my once perfect life. He carried me upstairs again and held me till I fell asleep. It was wonderful.
Wednesday morning, I woke still in his arms. He apologised for not telling me earlier, but he had to go away for two nights and would be back Friday. Of course, I forgave him. He’d become a specialist Aluminium welder and his company occasionally hired him out for difficult out of town jobs. I didn’t like it, of course, but I was happy he was respected in his field and sought after. Wednesday and Thursday night, he rang briefly to say he was exhausted and going to crash as soon as he ate. I went to bed early on Thursday. The next day was going to be huge. It looked like Dave was going to do what he’d done once before—pretend to forget my birthday, then hit me with the surprise.
Even the depressing atmosphere of work couldn’t break my mood the next day. I even managed to smile at the office girls. That was until the text arrived from Dave just before lunch. “Client problem today. Have to stop one more night, see you tomorrow.” I was instantly very angry. How could he do that to me on my birthday? I rang his cell but it was turned off. I knew his company frowned on personal calls during business hours. I left a message I knew it was all a trick, and a very poor taste one at that, then said I’d see him tonight.
I fully expected him to be there when I got home and was very disappointed. I rang his cell again but it was still turned off. The joke was getting real old, real fast. I sat on the couch and stewed; fighting back the feeling of dread that was creeping over me. My desperate logic that it was only paranoia was convincing myself less and less. I pulled out my cell and read his last text again. It was only then that the chilling familiarity of those words struck home. With trembling fingers and a heaving breast, I spun through my text history until I located the one I was looking for. There it was, “Client problem today. Have to stop one more night, see you tomorrow.” It was the message I’d sent Dave after my second night of sex with my lover, enabling a third consecutive night. That may have been a staggering coincidence, but what caught my eye next, proved it wasn’t. Below that text from me, so many months ago, was the next one I’d sent. It was the one apologising to Dave for forgetting his birthday. The fact that two identically worded texts had been sent at the same times on each of our birthdays, took it well beyond the bounds of coincidence.
I felt lightheaded and even when I closed my eyes, I could still see little sparks across my vision. I must have swooned because the next thing I knew it was just after 10:00p.m. I picked up my phone from where it had fallen on the floor, swapped to the received texts folder and pulled up the response Dave had sent after receiving my original lie. “Too bad. Going out for my birthday with friends.” Was that my doom as well? To have a hollow celebration of my big day with friends? What friends? The only one I still had from my old work group was Wendy, and she was obsessed with trying to get her husband back. Of my new work friends, only Peta had showed anything like friendship since everything exploded and even she hadn’t visited or offered a shoulder to cry on for God knows how long.